LAMA Policy Council Retreat and Policy Priorities

The Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Arizona Policy Council gathered Sunday - Monday, November 17-18 to listen and learn and laugh together, but primarily to discern what social concerns the group felt called to represent as LAMA’s Policy Priorities for 2025. Highlights of the action-packed 24 hours are below:

Attending the 2024 Policy Council Retreat were:

• Rev. Deborah Hutterer, Bishop of the Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA

• Connie Phillips, President and CEO of Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest

• Mark Engel, member Holy Trinity Lutheran, Chandler

• Solveig Muus, director of LAMA, member Grace Lutheran, Phoenix

• Wendi Van Beek, member Our Saviour’s Lutheran, Tucson

• Rev. Brian Weinberger, pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran, Mesa

• Rev. Robert Jones, pastor of Santa Cruz Lutheran, Tucson

• Rev. Alan Field, guest, chair of the advocacy group on the LSS-SW Board of Directors

• Molly Watson, member Our Saviour’s Lutheran, Phoenix

Unable to attend, but with us in spirit and in prayer were:

• Melanie Hobden, member Desert Cross Lutheran, Tempe

• Autumn Byars, member University Lutheran, Tempe

Guest presenters were:

• Christine Thompson, Arizona Together for Impact, on grassroots and grasstops organizing

• Rebecca Beebe, Arizona Capitol Connections, on what we might expect to see at the state legislature in 2025

Policy Priorities for 2025 are:

• Food Insecurity as it relates to hunger and the root causes of hunger. Our ELCA social teachings on hunger and poverty include Economic Life and Homelessness. LAMA will continue its work through the Grand Canyon Synod’s Hunger Leaders Network and the annual 40-40-40 Lenten Challenge, and collaborate with our coalition partners at Arizona Faith Network, Bread for the World, Arizona Food Bank Network and others to alleviate food insecurity in Arizona and elsewhere.

• Civic Engagement as we are called to encourage faithful and nonpartisan voter participation, and understand and speak out about the intersection of voting and elections and racial, gender and economic justice. The ELCA is established to be a “publicly engaged church.” The ELCA social teachings on educating, advocating, and engaging in our political process, including Government and Civic Engagement, Church in Society, the new Social Statement on Civic Life and Faith, and the the ELCAvotes initiatives Called to Be a Public Church, Voting Rights and Racial Justice, Movement into Action speak to this calling.

  • Support for public schools. Martin Luther wrote, “A city’s best and greatest welfare, safety, and strength consist in its having many able, learned, wise, honorable, and well- educated citizens.” Then as now, effective schools are a blessing to society, preparing students for their future callings and responsibilities. LAMA will work to support public schools, acknowledging the many ways that students and families who are underserved benefit through not only an education, but also from food programs such as Healthy School Meals and Sun Bucks, shelter through both heat and air conditioning, and the safety that public schools provide. ELCA Social Statement Our Calling in Education informs this work.

  • Informed Christian engagement. What does it mean to be a Christian living and serving in a complex, diverse, and interdependent global society and to be responsible and civil citizens? What does our faith call us to be engaged in? LAMA seeks to educate, inform and promote healthy dialogue on Christian engagement.

• Immigration. Together with our partners at Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest (LSS-SW), LAMA seeks to support with compassion the dignity of individuals experiencing immigration by working to protect legal pathways to immigration and protecting the civil rights of all in our multicultural society. Exodus 23:9 reads, “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” The ELCA Social Message Immigration presents basic themes for discernment on questions of immigration that our society is facing, and the social policy resolution Toward Compassionate, Just, and Wise Immigration Reform will inform this work. LAMA seeks to alleviate misperceptions, separating fact from myth, and will endeavor to educate our network on immigration policy, clarifying what’s at stake.

• Housing and Homelessness. We are pleased to be in collaboration with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest (LSS-SW), who has committed again in 2025 to advocating in the areas of affordable housing and homelessness. We will partner with LSS-SW in these efforts, and will use the ELCA’s social message, Homeless: A Renewal of Commitment, and its new resource, Housing: A Practical Guide for Learning, Advocating and Building as references.

Seeking Policy Council Members

If you or someone you know is interested in being on the policy council, please contact LAMA at director@lamaz.org.